Wednesday, 4 November 2009

A unique Queensland "299 road safety" campaign is underway, an event that involves 299 people standing for a minutes silence at the Cairns Esplanade Lagoon area.

In January, Queensland's Transport Minister John Mickel said that thirty-three fewer people were killed in road crashes in Queensland last year compared to 2007.

"This year let's recommit ourselves, all of us as a community, to the speed we choose to go, whether we're going to drink too much before we drive, the attention we pay when we're on the road, the obedience we give to traffic lights," he said.

According to the Brisbane Times, Queensland could be on track for its worst roll toll in 12 years, with about one person dying each day.

QUEENSLAND Road Toll Source: Brisbane Times

"As the number of fatalities hit 250 in mid September, road safety researchers declared a need to tackle the plateau in the road toll seen in the past decade," said the report. "Safety initiatives including seatbelt laws and random breath testing, the development of safer cars and safer roads have cut the state's road toll in half since it peaked at 638 in the 1970s, despite the number of registered motor vehicles quadrupling in that time."

Queensland police have set a target of no more than 299 deaths on the State's roads this year. However, if the average weekly deaths continue, the toll will pass 360 figure registered in 1997 and again in 2007.

To this end, the coppers need your help! You'll wear a red or white hat (supplied on the day) and you may appear on television and photos, so media whores welcome.

The event will happen at the Cairns Esplanade Lagoon, outside the Cairns Police City Beat at 1 pm, early next week. As the event is designed to occur simultaneously with other similar events throughout Queensland, only 24 hours notice will be given of the exact day.

"We're looking for people to be representative of a cross-section of young and old, male and female participants," Senior Sergeant Brendon McMahon, of the Far Northern Region says.

If you can help, please email Brendon. He will notify those who are required.

3 comments:

I’d just like to say thank you for including the Road safety 299 campaign info on CairnsBlog.

Thanks also for including the recent releases as well.

Obviously they’re only a snapshot of what occurs over the preceding day however it gives the public a bit of an idea of what’s going on around the area at least. I have to take the stories from the various station and section occurrence sheets so quite a bit of it can’t be printed due to it’s sensitive nature (Sex offences and domestic violence incidents and so on).

Most road toll hysteria is really just about pimping for fine revenue under the untouchable guise of road safety. Ever more draconian enforcement of artificially low speed limits on major roads has clearly made no difference to the road toll but certainly has to Government coffers. Ask any Victorian. Also, compare raod toll figures for say...1970 compared to today, and put them against numbers of cars on the road, driving population etc, and you'll wonder what constitutes "Carnage".

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